Burn Treatment
Surgical Procedures
Phantom Limb Pain
Chronic Pain
TECHNOLOGY
Virtual Reality
Burn Treatment
One area where virtual reality has shown the biggest promise and research-backed success has been in the arena of pain management . And nowhere is that impact quite as profound and heart-warming as when applied to pediatric patients suffering from severe burn injuries . While morphine can typically keep pain under control when patients are lying still in bed , there is no dosage of narcotics that can tame the excruciating pain burn victims experience during daily wound care sessions .
Enter virtual reality .
Shriners Hospital for Children in Galveston , Texas is one of several hospitals currently using the VR experience SnowWorld to help children in recovery . Created by Dr . Hunter Hoffman of the University of Washington , SnowWorld was designed to distract patients from pain during burn care by immersing them in a snowy landscape where they are tasked with throwing snowballs at snowmen , penguins and woolly mammoths .
According to Dr . Hoffman ’ s research , patients who play SnowWorld during wound treatments report up to 50 percent less pain than similar patients who don ’ t . Other research suggests that patients engaging in the snow-capped virtual reality actually show changes in the brain that indicate they ’ re feeling less pain . This is because VR has an analgesic effect , lessening the severity of pain the patient experiences since the parts of the brain that are linked to pain – among them the somatosensory cortex and the insula – are less active when a patient is immersed in virtual reality .
Surgical Procedures
Equally astounding , a surgeon out of Mexico City has been using virtual reality and nothing more than a local anesthetic for procedures and surgeries that would normally require powerful ( and costly ) painkillers and sedatives . With more than 350 successful surgeries under his belt , there ’ s evidence to suggest the technique
Ilya Druzhnikov
is working . Dr . Luis Mosso Vasquez believes that if more doctors opt to use VR technology in lieu of costly drugs , not only will Mexican hospitals save money , but that they will also see fewer patient complications and speedier recovery times .
Phantom Limb Pain
Millions of people in the U . S . are currently living with amputations . Of those , a significant number live with or are likely to experience phantom limb pain . The syndrome has proven difficult to treat and drug trials have failed to be effective . Thankfully , researchers have found virtual reality as a promising treatment to help amputees better cope with the pain .
Through an immersive VR experience wherein the person ’ s motions are tracked and used to generate a virtual limb , the patient is not only able to perceive the missing limb , but also to control it by participating in a simple batting practice game . In a study on the effectiveness of this VR approach , a significant number of participants reported reduced pain and one participant even reported regaining some control over a residual limb that has been paralyzed .
Chronic Pain
In addition to these acute pain treatment applications , doctors are beginning to experiment with VR as a means to treat chronic pain , a promising first step in addressing America ’ s much talked about opioid crisis . As reported in a recent Quartz article , patients suffering from chronic pain participating in two small clinical trials , “ reported that their pain fell by 60 to 75 percent ( compared to the baseline ) during their VR session , and by 30 to 50 percent immediately afterwards . The best morphine does is 30 percent .”
While most medical research in virtual reality applications for improved patient care has seemingly focused on pain management , the technology shows promise in other areas as well .
17 TODAY ’ S PRACTICE : CHANGING THE BUSINESS OF MEDICINE